A conventional optical projector may include a light source, an input image device holder, such as a glass plate on which a slide or transparency may be placed for illumination by light from the light source, and a lens system for projecting an image of the illuminated slide or transparency. Typically the slide or transparency would have optically transparent portions and optically absorbent, e.g. black, portions. When projected onto a screen, such black portions appear black due to absorption of light by the light absorbing, e.g. black emulsion, material on the slide or transparency, and the optically transmissive portions would appear relatively bright on the screen. A common exemplary projection is known as an overhead projector which often is used during classes, lectures, presentations, and the like; overhead projectors often are used to project images of alphanumeric, graphical, or other information written or printed on the transparency, and provision, too, often is made to enable a lecturer, for example, to write directly on the transparency while used in the projector.
One problem with such conventional projectors is the large amount of heat that is absorbed by the light absorbing portions of the slide or transparency, which could cause destruction or damage to the latter; to minimize such heat build-up it often is necessary to use one or more infrared or heat absorbing filters optically upstream of the slide or transparency. The heat dissipated in the heat filters and at the optical source or cabinet containing the same requires elimination, for example by a blower or other means. The blower may produce undesirable noise and/or vibration and uses energy that would not have to be consumed if the heat did not require such elimination. Another disadvantage with conventional overhead projectors is that the hot surface of the transparency often is difficult to write on by the lecturer. A further disadvantage of such conventional overhead projectors is the diffraction of light at the interface between light absorbing material, such as a black emulsion, and transparent material of the transparency or slide; such diffraction can reduce the contrast and quality of the projected image seen on a screen. Furthermore, in conventional film projectors, contrast would be reduced since images are formed in part, at least, by the blockage of light, and such blockage is a function of absorption, which can vary, depending on the quality of opaqueness of the blocking material.
Liquid crystal material currently is used in a wide variety of devices, including, for example, optical devices such as visual displays. A property of liquid crystals enabling use in visual displays is the ability to scatter and/or to absorb light when the liquid crystals are in a random alignment and the ability to transmit light when the liquid crystals are in an ordered alignment.
Frequently a visual display using liquid crystals displays dark characters on a gray or relatively light background. In various circumstances it would be desirable, though, using liquid crystal material to be able to display with facility relatively bright characters of other information, etc. on a relatively dark background. It would be desirable as well to improve the effective contrast between the character displayed and the background of the display itself.
An example of electrically responsive liquid crystal material and use thereof is found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,322,485. Certain types of liquid crystal material are responsive to temperature, changing the optical characteristics, such as the random or ordered alignment of the liquid crystal material, in response to temperature of the liquid crystal material.
Currently there are three categories of liquid crystal materials, namely cholesteric, nematic and smectic. The present invention preferably uses nematic liquid crystal material or a combination of nematic and some cholesteric type. More specifically, the liquid crystal material preferably is operationally nematic, i.e. it acts as nematic material and not as the other types. Operationally nematic means that in the absence of external fields structural distortion of the liquid crystal is dominated by the orientation of the liquid crystal at its boundaries, e.g. with a surface, such as the surface of a capsule-like volume, rather than bulk effects, such as very strong twists as in cholesteric material, or layering as in smectic material. Thus, for example, chiral ingredients which induce a tendency to twist but cannot overcome the effects of boundary alignment still would be operationally nematic. Such material should have a positive dielectric anisotropy. Although various characteristics of the various liquid crystal materials are described in the prior art, one known characteristic is that of reversibility. Particularly, nematic liquid crystal material is known to be reversible, but cholesteric material ordinarily is not reversible.
It is also known to add pleochroic dyes to the liquid crystal material. One advantage to using pleochroic dye with the liquid crystal material is the eliminating of a need for a polarizer. However, in the nematic form a pleochroic device has relatively low contrast. In the past cholesteric material could be added to the nematic material together with the dye to improve contrast ratio. See for example the White et al article in Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 45, No. 11, November 1974, at pages 4718-4723. However, although nematic material is reversible, depending on whether or not an electric field is applied across the same, cholesteric material ordinarily would not tend to its original zero field form when the electric field would be removed. Another disadvantage to use of pleochroic dye in solution with liquid crystal material is that the absorption of the dye is not zero in the field-on condition; rather, absorption in the field-on condition follows an ordering parameter, which relates to or is a function of the relative alignment of the dyes.
Usually liquid crystal material is anisotropic both optically (birefringence) and, for example in the case of nematic material, electrically. The optical anisotropy is manifest by the scattering of light when the liquid crystal material is in random alignment, and the transmission of light through the liquid crystal material when it is in ordered alignment. The electrical anisotropy may be a relationship between the dielectric constant or dielectric coefficient with respect to the alignment of the liquid crystal material.
In the past, devices using liquid crystals, such as visual display devices, have been relatively small. Use of encapsulated liquid crystals disclosed in applicant's above mentioned co-pending applications has enabled the satisfactory use of liquid crystal in relatively large size displays, such as billboards, etc., as is disclosed in such applications; and another large (or small) scale use may be as an optical shutter to control passage of light from one area into another, say at a window or window-like area of a building. The present invention relates to improvements in such encapsulated liquid crystals and to the utilization of the light scattering characteristic of the liquid crystal material as opposed, for example, to the light absorption (usually with pleochroic dye) characteristic thereof. The invention also relates to the use of such material and characteristics, for example, to obtain a relatively bright character or information displayed on a relatively dark or colored background in both small and large displays as an optical shutter, and so on. Such large displays and shutters may be about one square foot surface area or even larger. In accordance with the present invention the liquid crystal material most preferably is of the encapsulated type.
As used herein with respect to the present invention, encapsulated liquid crystal material means liquid crystal material in a substantially closed containment medium, such as discrete capsules or cells, and preferably may be in the form of an emulsion of the liquid crystal material and the containment medium. Such emulsion should be a stable one. Various methods for making and using encapsulated liquid crystal material and apparatus associated therewith are disclosed below and in applicant's co-pending application, which is incorporated by reference.